


Fall

by norgbelulah



Category: Justified
Genre: Biblical References, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raylan goes back to Helen’s grave once a week in the months before Art finally lets him ship out of Kentucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "fall from grace" square on my [info]hc_bingo card.

Raylan goes back to Helen’s grave once a week in the months before Art finally lets him ship out of Kentucky. Things have died down in Harlan. It seems Boyd and his boys are keeping a tight lid on any violence or crime. At least no law enforcement have found evidence of anything going down. And when you can’t see smoke, it makes it a lot harder to find any fires.

Arlo had put Helen’s plot away from the house, under a tree where so many Givens’ had been buried before, where it’s hard not trip on a crumbling gravestone on your way down the path. Raylan finds Boyd in front of one such stone on a dusky afternoon, when the sun is fast disappearing behind the mountain.

Autumn is upon them all and both of them are huddled into thick winter coats. Raylan suspects Boyd is only upon the chiding of a slowly recovering Ava. He feels the chill in his own wound, deep, and has been for weeks now.

“Raylan,” Boyd says, not turning around.

Raylan huffs a short, cold breath. “Boyd. What are you doin’ out here?”

“Paying respects,” he replies.

“To someone not of your kin?”

“It’s always wise to honor the dead, Raylan.” There’s a calm truth in Boyd’s tone and Raylan doesn’t feel like arguing. Boyd is here. Boyd’s not going anywhere, he might as well get used to it.

“I suppose,” He says and walks to where Boyd is standing, halting in front of the gravestone. “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Galatians Five. Four and Five,” Raylan reads from the stone.

The typeface is small, and just barely legible, but Raylan seems to remember reading it before, when he was young. He thinks that’s why he can get through the whole passage. The name of the dead has been washed away by time. “What do you think of that, Boyd?”

There is a long pause, but finally he replies in a stone cold voice, “It’s shit.” Raylan glances at him in surprise, raising careful brows. Boyd looks right back at him and explains, “It’s about circumcision. The apostle Paul telling new Christians they don’t need to follow the Jewish laws. That’s about all half the entire Bible is, Raylan, Old and New Testament, just some kind of folks telling other kinds of folks how to live. Utter shit. No one cares what somebody’s pecker looks like underneath his clothes, or should care. It’s nobody’s goddamn business.”

Raylan shrugs. “You gotta agree, though, there’s somethin’ poetic about it. ‘Fallen from grace.’”

Now Boyd smiles, and says, “It’s just good old King James, Raylan. He made the entire dull charade into pure poetry. Got a few things mixed up along the way, but poetry it is, for certain.”

“You had that opinion when you were hikin’ up and down this mountain with God on your tongue?” Raylan asks, really just out of curiosity.

“I believe I said before, my friend, it was the blind leading the blind. I saw those things, but chose not to see them. I’m sure you’ve had that experience as well.”

“Maybe so,” Raylan accedes. “To me, it just seems like someone was tryin’ to make themselves feel better that another Givens died at the hands of a lawman.”

“Maybe so,” Boyd echoes. He shoves his hands in his pockets like he’s planting them there.

“Helen never liked the law much either,” Raylan finds himself saying without really thinking about it. “But she knew what I was thinkin’, when I got into this line of work. She respected my choice. She didn’t have to do that.” He doesn’t take his eyes off that scripture. “No one else ever did.”

“Helen was a rare woman, Raylan.”

“I know it,” he replies. “It was the thought of her that stopped me when I walked Dickie into the woods behind Jed’s house.”

He senses Boyd stiffen next to him, though they aren’t close enough to touch. “You were going to shoot him?” Boyd’s voice is so soft it might be carried away on the wind.

Raylan sets his jaw. “I wanted to. I know you wanted me to and that’s why I’m telling you now. It was Helen, her faith in my choice, that stopped me from falling.”

Boyd takes in this information with a considering silence and Raylan says nothing else. The wind blows through the branches of the tree behind them and finally Boyd speaks. “Do you want me to tell you I’m glad?”

Raylan thinks of Ava with a bullet hole just as big as his inside her. He almost laughs as he realizes they could form a club for people who have been shot on each other’s property in Harlan. He sobers when he thinks it could have easily been any of them that died, not just Helen.

“No, Boyd,” he answers. “I just wanted you to know. Don’t ask me why, all right?”

They stare at the gravestone at their feet for a good minute and a half and Boyd doesn’t as why. Raylan doesn’t turn to Helen’s grave. Today, just being there feels right enough, even with Boyd there.

“I hate that phrase,” Boyd says suddenly, as if emerging from an entirely different conversation. Raylan tilts his head until Boyd elaborates. “Fall from grace,” he almost spits. “Even when I was swearing that Almighty God himself was working through me, I never put any stock into falling from grace. It’s not an accident, it’s not a true fall. It’s a step. I take a step away from God, you take a step away from the law, or from your values. You chose not to take that step in those woods, Raylan, and I respect you for it, I do. But I won’t congratulate you. It’s your over-indulged sense of morality, not mine.”

Raylan refrains from saying he didn’t ask Boyd to do any such thing. He simply nods and his gun feels heavy in its holster. “I assume you know where I’ll come first if Dickie ends up dead, in or out of prison.”

Boyd grins and there’s a challenge in it. “I would be disappointed if you didn’t. But I wouldn’t be too concerned, either, if I were you. There are a great many more pressing things weighing on my mind than the life of Dickie Bennett.”

“Such as?”

“That’s for me to know and you to construe from rumor and hearsay, Raylan. I can’t do all your work for you, now can I?”

“Well, it sure would be nice, Boyd, but I suppose not.”

Boyd’s expression now is reminiscent of the one he gave Raylan when they first met again, after all those years apart, but it’s subdued now, not quite so-overconfident. He holds out his hand and Raylan takes it, not sure if he should be expecting an embrace.

Instead of leaning in, Boyd only takes Raylan’s opposite elbow in a firm, strangely comforting grip, like he wants to hold Raylan where he stands. He says, full of certainty, “I do believe, you’re going to be fine, Raylan.”


End file.
